


not if it's you

by smoakoverwatch



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I have a lot of feelings, Married!Olicity, Nightmares, PTSD, post 5x23 flashbacks the show never gave us smh, set directly after the events of 6x14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:25:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoakoverwatch/pseuds/smoakoverwatch
Summary: Directly after the events of 6x14 "Collision Course", Felicity relives some of her demons from the past year, and Oliver wants to be there.





	not if it's you

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo. This is dedicated to a super special gal Adri, 'cause it's her birthday today. Also, I've wanted to write something related to Felicity and 5x23 for a long time, especially something in relation to John's nerve damage. Also also, without oversharing, this is me coping with some personal nightmares for the past few months. 
> 
> (since it's my usual beta's birthday, this is super unedited, so apologies for any errors lmao)
> 
> [insp.](http://soracities.tumblr.com/post/169231372828/euripides-from-orestes-an-oresteia-trans)

_Felicity can’t breathe._

_The air is thick and ashy, and every time she tries to inhale it feels like she’s breathing into a bag of dust._

_She starts coughing violently and tries to look around._

_At some point, she’d been separated from the rest of the group and she’s alone. She blinks hard, but she can’t make out anything. She hears shouting in the distance but none of it is comprehensible. She thinks by now every explosion Chase rigged the island with has surely been detonated._

_Or she hopes._

_She doesn’t know how much more she can survive._

_The overwhelming feeling of straight-up panic threatens to cloud her thinking, but she can’t let herself be lost to it just yet. Once she gives in, it’s over. She knows this. She can hear Oliver now, telling her to get her head in the game._

_Oliver._

_Her hand flies up to her ear, hope soaring for just a moment._

_She touches skin. The com must have fallen out at some point during all the chaos._

_Okay. Fine, no big deal._

_She starts walking, running, aimlessly. She just needs to find one person, just one, and make sure they’ve survived. If she finds Oliver, great. If it’s John, better. Hell, she might even take Slade Wilson at this point if it means it’ll get her out of this fire and fury._

_She wanders for too long. The smoke inhalation is starting to make her feel lightheaded and her breaths are coming out shorter. She remembers every statistic she ever read on this issue once, while Oliver had been tracking an arson down and insisted on running into every scene with no apparent self preservation._

_Well, none of her readings on house fires exactly prepared her for a series of explosions on an island in the middle of the North China Sea._

_She blinks heavily. The lens of her glasses cracked in the explosion, so she had to tuck them away but without them, her vision blurs and her headache is only exacerbated._

_Her steps start to falter, and she knows she’s losing her strength. She doesn’t know how long she’s wandered, looking for someone and trying not to burn to death._

_She’s never been good at gauging time. One time, on a hiking trip with Oliver, she insisted she was only asking ‘are we there yet,’ every half hour, but instead if was every five minutes (he started timing it to prove a point)._

_It ended up being worth it, because the view he brought her to was undoubtedly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen._

_She remembers his proud grin when they reached the top so clearly._

_The memory distracts her, and at the sound of something crashing in the distance, she finds herself tripping on a rock._ Again _. As she lands against the dirt, she curses under her breath. It’s infuriating, how this keeps happening to her._

_It’s just fear, she knows her legs should be steady. But ever since the day she was trapped in the bunker with Oliver, she’s been doubting her own chip more than a few times. It’s especially unhelpful right now, when she’s alone and already been separated from John because of her fall._

_She wipes her hands of the dirt and finds the air knocked out of her. She tries once to get up, but can’t without her head spinning, so she remains seated, giving into the exhaustion that’s pulled at her all day._

_Absently, she rubs at her back, trying to ignore the dull ache that starts to press up her spine._

_As her eyelids fight to stay open – some long-reserved part of her apparently fighting to keep her alive – she hears running._

_“Hey,” she tries to call out, but her voice is too hoarse, “Over here.”_

_“Felicity!” Oh god, it’s Oliver. He found her._

_He always finds her._

_“Oliv…” she stops to cough, “Oliver.”_

_He drops to his knees and starts to shake at her shoulders._

_“Felicity, hey, hey, come on,” his voice is thick with a myriad of emotions, “Stay with me. Stay with me, baby, please.”_

_“Oliver I…” she blinks, the black spots dancing behind her eyes, “I’m…”_

_“I know, I know,” he pleads, “But you need to try and stay with me right now, can you do that?”_

_“Oliver,” she starts coughing, a violent hack that makes her entire body shudder. He immediately helps her to sit upright._

_“You’re okay, you’re okay,” he whispers, stroking her hair. She wonders if he’s telling her, or himself, “Just stay strong for me, honey, I can’t lose you too.”_

_The words disorient her for a moment, and later she’ll find out that before he saw her he had just found Thea and seen Samantha die._

_When her coughing subsides, she finds her gasping for another reason._

_“Where’s John?” she cries out, as best she can with her hoarse voice, “Where is he? We have to find him. Oliver, he’s – he’s somewhere here. He was right behind me. you have to – oh god, oh god, I don’t – I don’t –”_

_“Felicity, Felicity, listen to me. Calm down, please.”_

_But she can’t hear him. All that matters in that moment is making sure Oliver knows that they_ need _to find John._

_“He’s okay,” Oliver says gently._

_“He was right behind me,” she can’t register what Oliver is saying, “He was supposed to be.. but I lost him. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Oliver –”_

“Felicity. Felicity, hey. Wake up.”

The first thing that registers is that her chest hurts.

No, that’s not the right way to put it.

Her chest _burns._

It burns something fierce, and only until she realizes the shaking of her shoulders isn’t her own but large, warm, concerned hands, does she realize that she is screaming until her lungs give out.

Her skin feels like it’s on fire, the way it did on the island.

Her head is vibrating, like the way the ground did when it started shaking under her cheek, when she tripped and couldn’t immediately get up, and she feared the worst was happening to her again.

This – this exact moment of panic beyond consolation – has happened before. Too, too many times.

But today it feels different.

Today, she knows Oliver is calling out her name with increased desperation, because this time she can’t stop. He’s stroking her hair and pushing her hair away from her damp face.

But it’s too much. He’s everywhere, and it’s overwhelming, so before she can think about it she’s swatting his hand away.

She can barely register the sound as it falls limp to his side, landing on their bed.

She feels bad about it. Or she will, later. But right now, her hands can’t seem to stay steady, and she just wants to get away.

She pushes the covers away, where her bare thighs stick together from being coated in sweat. The cold air makes her start shivering, but she fights the impulse to hide in the warmth and runs straight for the washroom.

She only has a minute to flick the light on before dropping in front of the bathtub – she doesn’t even make it to the toilet before she’s on her knees, heaving desperately. It feels like she is there for hours, gasping until her empty stomach clenches and aches, and her throat burns with the sour taste of stomach acid.

Eventually, the compulsion to be sick again and again passes. Her breathing gets steady, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and she is exhausted. The cold air starts to feel worse as her sweat dries, and she trembles in her thin pajamas.

She knows she should get up from this spot, on the cold tile floor with one cheek pressed against the colder porcelain, where the smell of her latest nightmare swims right under her nose.

But she can’t.

Wet eyes slide shut at the sound of the door quietly closing behind her. She doesn’t have to look to know that Oliver is hovering by the door, watching her sprawled form with an undoubtedly guilty frown on his face. She knows he’s watching her with one hand stretched out, one foot half ready to leave the room at her request.

Knowing this prompts the first word she’s said (at least, consciously) all night, “I’m sorry.”

Again, she doesn’t turn around at his half-scoff, but she knows he’s shaking his head right now and trying to fight a self-deprecating smile, almost as if to say, _I’m the one who should be sorry._

He steps forward, and she figures that if he can do that then she can look him in the eyes instead of feeding her embarrassment.

When she does, his eyes are rimmed red. One side of his hair sticks up unevenly from the rest, and his cheeks are a little swollen as they always are when he wakes up, reminding her of the late hour.

He sits next to her, leaning his back against the bathtub and bringing a hand up to stroke her leg, but at the last moment changing his mind and letting it drop in his lap. He sets a glass of water down on the floor next to her, but doesn’t push it forward.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She laughs, and runs a hand through her hair, which feels heavy under her touch from the sweat, “Not really.”

Oliver nods, “Okay.”

She knows he’ll never, ever push her to talk about something she isn’t ready for. And she appreciates it.

“I’m sorry,” she says again. He throws her a _look_ out of the corner of his eye, and still elects to ignore her.

“I am,” she continues, “You shouldn’t have to see that. The last thing you need is one more thing on your plate to worry about.”

This time, his look is less _unamused_ and more _outright_ angry.

“Is that what you think?” he says it quietly, but there is an offended tone bubbling underneath, “Felicity, this isn’t just _some burden_ I don’t want to carry. I care about you, I love you, I want to make sure you’re okay, always.”

“I know,” she says quietly. She crosses her legs and mirrors his position against the tub, taking the hand in his lap, “I know that, but it’s so hard to see what you deal with every day and how much it weighs on you and to just –”

“I would gladly drop all of it if it meant helping you, you know that. Above all else, _you_ are my priority.”

She doesn’t say anything, instead traces around the silver wedding ring on his finger. He doesn’t take it off, not while he’s sleeping and not when he’s out in the field. She’s told him he’s crazy for it, but at this moment she appreciates the sight of the metal band, and the reminder of their commitment to one another.

“It was Lian Yu,” she finally says. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she can feel the smoke under her nose, the ringing in her ears once more. Her heart starts to tap heavier beats against her chest, but she ignores all these feelings. If she doesn’t say it now, she’ll never be able to say it, and the feeling of despair will only come back every other night.

“All I could feel was how… how hopeless the entire thing made me. I couldn’t tell where anyone else was. I couldn’t… couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.”

Oliver’s eyes slide shut. No doubt, she’s making him remember his own traumas from that day. She fights the guilt, because she knows deep down that this is part of the life they live. That they both have demons, demons that win most nights.

Demons that leave them just two damaged souls, sitting on a cold bathroom floor at ass-early o’clock.

“I’d been thinking about that day a lot this week,” she reveals, “Because of… because of…”

“Because of what happened, with the others,” Oliver finishes.

This part of the story, he knows. She’s revealed to him not long ago, the night John’s implant was in place, that she feels tremendously guilty at his nerve damage, because he saved her life.

“If I hadn’t fallen,” this time, her voice wavers, “If I just had more _control_ , over my surroundings, over my own legs, he wouldn’t have been caught in the blast.”

“Felicity,” he loosens the grip she has on his fingers and brings his arm around her to pull her into his side. instantly, she finds his right hand and grips it tight, holding onto him like a lifeline, “You can’t think like that. It’s been months.”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” she says bitterly, “And when _they_ just… hurt him more, without even really thinking about how much it would hurt him, I can’t help but think that it would never happen to him if I just…”

She shakes her head.

“So much happened that day, on the island, all of it was out of our control,” Oliver says, “Would you let me blame myself for any of it? _Did_ you let me? When Thea was in a coma? When Samantha died?”

She shakes her head slowly, “Never.”

“Exactly. I can’t tell you not to carry this burden, but let me at least help you carry the load.”

“It’s a lot of baggage to bear, between the two of us, and I’ve never been good at packing,” she forces a chuckle, “Sounds like a lot of work.”

“Not to me,” he says sincerely, ignoring her joke all together, “Not if it’s you.”

Her eyes fill with tears once more, and she lifts her head to look up at him.

She finds nothing but love shining in his eyes. 

It’s overwhelming, sometimes. She knows, objectively, that he loves her. But that he can look at her, post-sickness and sleep breath and tears and nightmare sweat and all, and look at her like she hung the moon itself, is unbelievable.

She sometimes wonders what part of her spirit, which has seen – and caused – so much destruction in six or so years, has been kept pure enough that she’s earned the man in front of her. What she did to get him back after the world seemed to only want to keep them apart. To be able to call him her _husband_ , after all this time. To share a family with him, one that she never thought she could get.

He often says that she is the one who brings him light, but these days she can’t help but feel that it is the other way around.

It’s that train of thought that pushes the next words out of her mouth, “I love you.”

He gives her a small, genuine smile, the kind that always softens his weary features and makes her feel warm inside, “I love you, too.”

She decides that, well, the cold tile floor is too unpleasant to spend another minute on. She pushes onto her feet and reaches down to help Oliver up. Not that he needs it, but he takes it anyway.

“Sleep?” he asks.

She looks at the small clock they keep on the bathroom counter (for her own benefit, since she’s usually running late when she has to get ready). The time reads that it’s nearly 5:30.

She groans and shakes her head, “No sleep, I have a meeting with an investor that I had to leave the house for at 8. I’ll just shower, I feel all gross.”

He looks at her carefully, as though searching for some kind of crack in her armor.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asks carefully.

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’ll be fine,” she insists, “I’m free after that so I’ll just go home and rest until we have to go to the lair.”

He crosses his arms, pursing his thin lips together before walking out of the bathroom.

“Okay,” she mutters, “Good talk, babe.”

She follows him back into the bedroom, where he’s turned the nightstand lamp on. His neck is bent over his phone, as he types with one hand, and holds hers in the other.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Texting Thea. Asking to reschedule one of my meetings with state auditors. And then, you’ll let your investor know that you can see him tomorrow instead. We,” he looks up at her, “are taking a much, _much_ needed day off.”

Felicity tilts her head to the side, “I’m sorry, are you asking me, or telling me?” her voice starts to climb as she feels indignant.

He ignores her anger, and holds one finger up, “Cayden James,” he raises more fingers as he lists things off, “The other team, Black Siren in the wind, the trial coming up. We’re both in need of a day where we just relax.”

Her shoulders sink. He’s not entirely wrong, “Oliver, the city is in economic crisis, you can’t just blow off work like when you were CEO, you need to –”

“There’s nothing I can do right now with the money in the wind anyway. I’ll just have a lot of civil servants and reporters yelling at me. The city can’t possibly get any worse if I stay home for the morning. ” There’s an edge of bitterness in his tone, and Felicity is starting to realize that he needs this just as much as she does.

“Just one day. Or at least a handful of hours, because I know I can’t talk you out of the lair tonight. But Felicity, hear me out.”

He sets the two phones down on the table and gently takes her face in his hand in the way she loves _so_ much, “We need this, we’re overworking ourselves and it’s not healthy. We keep waiting for things to slow down, but in our world, they never do. Let’s just take a day. Stay in bed. William will be at school, we have the place to ourselves. I’ll even make you breakfast _after_ we both catch up on some sleep.”

Her eyes slide shut and her head tilts into his hand as she groans. The picture he’s painting is too perfect to even try and resist. And he’s right, everything he said is so spot on for their insane lives. Waiting for a time to slow down is what’s made her brain run into overdrive.

“If I lose this investor I’m going to kill you,” she finally says, and her words make Oliver’s face split out in a heartwarmingly triumphant grin, “But I am going to take that shower right now, before we sleep again.” The underside of her arms still feel slick from her earlier nightmare and she cannot go to bed feeling this gross, especially after her husband has promised her a day alone in their apartment.

“Deal.”

“And I want pancakes,” she says firmly, “From scratch. And not your whole wheat ones, either. The good stuff, topped _with_ the syrup you keep in the cabinet I can’t reach.”

Oliver laughs, “Yes ma’am.”

She shoots him a grin of her own, but quickly it disappears.

“And… thank you. For taking care of me.”

He leans down to kiss her forehead, and then rests his cheek against it as they embrace, “Always,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> twitter - smoakoverwatch  
> tumblr - overwatchandarrow


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